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Finished re-watching up to All the Way ( my least favorite episode of the season and the only one I can't really fanwank much eupheusim for. There's at least one or two every season of every tv series I've seen in my life. So this in nothing. If there's only two or three episodes I'm not nutty about - I figure the show is close to brilliant. If there's none and that's rare, it is, and it has only happened in tv shows with less than 13 episodes airing.)
The Buffy/Spike relationship continues to fascinate me, even if I continue to find fandom's multi-faceted response to the relationship a bit headache inducing, and oddly enough, incredibly intriguing. Part of the reason for this is the type of fan I am.
I adore and ship both characters. Buffy and Spike. They are my favorite tv characters of all time. I liked them together. I liked them apart. They are those rare characters that are interesting regardless of whether they are together or not in my opinion. And I identify on a personal level with each one. While Buffy and Angel in my opinion were far more interesting apart, and boring together, not helped by the fact that whenever Angel is with Buffy (with the possible exception of Chosen) he talks like a walking Hallmark Card commericial, cheap romance novel, or a Barry Manilow song. Angel as a character really does not get explored in depth until he leaves Buffy. Spike is another story.
I think the difference between Spike and Angel, and B/A and B/S is the writers planned the Buffy/Angel storyline out from the beginning and the Angel character, while the Spike character was unplanned, outside of the fact that he was Drusilla's paramour, and the Buffy/Spike relationship was unplanned - it was allegedly pitched to Whedon in S4 by James Marsters who at the time was desperately trying to figure out the character's motivation, and by Sarah Michelle Gellar. Whether these back-stage rumors are true is irrelevant, because Whedon clearly states in S5 commentary that it dawned on him S4 that Spike was madly in love with Buffy and he decided to explore exactly what that meant. It sort of came to them in the progress of telling the tale, just who Spike was as a character came to him through the telling - the story told him who Spike was. Which means figuring out authorial intent in regards to that relationship or even Spike for that matter feels a bit like asking James Joyce what he was thinking when he was writing Ulysses or what I intend when I write half the stuff I do in this live journal. I'm not entirely sure the writers know, except that they were admittedly exploring power and control issues - as they state over and over again in commentary. And the Spike/Buffy relationship has always been about power and control. They have a sort of tug of war battle going on between them - a dance of wills. Who can get the upper hand. Since they are more or less evenly matched and about the same physical type, size and shape, it is hard to tell.
( why the Buffy fandom gives me a headache in regards to my two favorite characters and favorite relationship. )
( Lengthy Buffy/Spike Meta from S5 to S7 )
The Buffy/Spike relationship continues to fascinate me, even if I continue to find fandom's multi-faceted response to the relationship a bit headache inducing, and oddly enough, incredibly intriguing. Part of the reason for this is the type of fan I am.
I adore and ship both characters. Buffy and Spike. They are my favorite tv characters of all time. I liked them together. I liked them apart. They are those rare characters that are interesting regardless of whether they are together or not in my opinion. And I identify on a personal level with each one. While Buffy and Angel in my opinion were far more interesting apart, and boring together, not helped by the fact that whenever Angel is with Buffy (with the possible exception of Chosen) he talks like a walking Hallmark Card commericial, cheap romance novel, or a Barry Manilow song. Angel as a character really does not get explored in depth until he leaves Buffy. Spike is another story.
I think the difference between Spike and Angel, and B/A and B/S is the writers planned the Buffy/Angel storyline out from the beginning and the Angel character, while the Spike character was unplanned, outside of the fact that he was Drusilla's paramour, and the Buffy/Spike relationship was unplanned - it was allegedly pitched to Whedon in S4 by James Marsters who at the time was desperately trying to figure out the character's motivation, and by Sarah Michelle Gellar. Whether these back-stage rumors are true is irrelevant, because Whedon clearly states in S5 commentary that it dawned on him S4 that Spike was madly in love with Buffy and he decided to explore exactly what that meant. It sort of came to them in the progress of telling the tale, just who Spike was as a character came to him through the telling - the story told him who Spike was. Which means figuring out authorial intent in regards to that relationship or even Spike for that matter feels a bit like asking James Joyce what he was thinking when he was writing Ulysses or what I intend when I write half the stuff I do in this live journal. I'm not entirely sure the writers know, except that they were admittedly exploring power and control issues - as they state over and over again in commentary. And the Spike/Buffy relationship has always been about power and control. They have a sort of tug of war battle going on between them - a dance of wills. Who can get the upper hand. Since they are more or less evenly matched and about the same physical type, size and shape, it is hard to tell.
( why the Buffy fandom gives me a headache in regards to my two favorite characters and favorite relationship. )
( Lengthy Buffy/Spike Meta from S5 to S7 )